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1 – 10 of over 64000Changsu Kim, Minghui Kang and Tao Wang
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether social networking site (SNS) communities benefit from collective knowledge and collaboration, which represent a portfolio of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether social networking site (SNS) communities benefit from collective knowledge and collaboration, which represent a portfolio of knowledge transfer on SNSs.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted on a large scale through an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze data collected from 674 experienced SNS users.
Findings
The results indicate that all three exogenous variables, presented as user characteristics and integrated into SNS user characteristics, were positively related to the knowledge transfer portfolio, namely, to collective knowledge and collaboration, and these variables had significant moderating effects on SNS users’ community cohesiveness. Early SNS adoption was more likely than late SNS adoption to moderate the relationship between collective knowledge and community cohesiveness and that between collective collaboration and community cohesiveness.
Practical implications
The findings provide useful insights for SNS operators to enhance the process of collaborative knowledge transfer. They may also be used to obtain better insights into important factors that require closer attention during SNS use.
Originality/value
The present study provides a systematic analysis of SNS use by considering a new research model and investigating the effects of SNS-based knowledge transfer on user outcomes based on three major characteristics of SNS users. The results are expected to provide a major foundation for further SNS research and a better understanding of the relationships between SNS user characteristics, knowledge transfer, and community cohesiveness.
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Yen-Chih Huang and Yang-Chieh Chin
The purpose of this study is to explore the pivotal role that collective teaching plays in knowledge transfer between new product development teams. This study develops a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the pivotal role that collective teaching plays in knowledge transfer between new product development teams. This study develops a theoretical model of collective teaching, where team intelligence is its consequence and learning orientation cognitive skills are moderators.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a questionnaire survey of 156 pairs of new product development project teams of information technology firms, the authors used partial least squares to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
The findings reveal that the use of collective teaching is positively related to team intelligence of recipient teams. In addition, T-shaped skills of source teams exert positive moderating influence on this relationship and so does a learning orientation of recipient teams.
Research limitations/implications
First, the sample firms used in the study are from the IT industry, which is characterized by extremely short product life cycles, thereby limiting the generalizability of the study’s findings. Second, the authors did not examine whether the effect of T-shaped skills is different at various NPD stages; the contributions of each functional expertise may vary depending on the NPD stage (e.g. the idea generation or pre-launch stage). Third, the use of cross-sectional design precludes a causal inference. The role of focal constructs and moderators and their consequent effects would benefit from more stringent, longitudinal research. Finally, the authors controlled for only a limited set of factors of team intelligence because other potential antecedents of this variable still await identification by future studies.
Practical implications
This study suggests that the implementation of collective teaching can enhance the capacity of a project team as a whole to manage and innovate information, namely, team intelligence. The study’s findings also suggest that the management must recognize the significance of teams’ learning orientation and thereby proactively develop teams’ learning culture by redesigning work, reward systems or performance evaluation to promote learning. Additionally, it is prudent for managers to reconsider their recruitment criteria to incorporate T-shaped skills.
Originality/value
This study represents the first step in developing an empirically grounded framework linking collective teaching with team intelligence. Additionally, the authors confirm that team intelligence is a four-dimensional construct.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how a foreign subsidiary operates in emerging markets and integrates market orientation with organizational learning to achieve a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how a foreign subsidiary operates in emerging markets and integrates market orientation with organizational learning to achieve a competitive lead. It is an attempt to fill an evident gap in the literature of integrating organizational learning into a market-oriented competitive strategy through using a four-step collective learning cycle at General Motors Egypt (GME).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a qualitative case study methodology to thoroughly examine the viewpoints of 90 respondents via in-depth and unstructured interviews with both managers and employees working in a variety of divisions inside GME. An integrative qualitative data analysis approach is used to explore, synthesize, interpret and derive relationships resulting from the collected data.
Findings
This work advances the theory of organizational learning by testing the theme of collective learning cycle in a real work setting. It presents a real example of aligning market orientation into a collective learning cycle directed toward achieving competitive advantages.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides scholars and practitioners alike with a real scenario on how and why a four-step organizational learning cycle functions as a building block to generate a competitive advantage. It also discusses the elements of collective learning that are not captured by the four-step collective learning cycle. Factors facilitating market-based organizational learning are also explored. However, the results generated are contingent on the investigated case study circumstances, which are limited in generalizability.
Practical implications
The paper addresses a set of directions through which auto assembly firms leverage both collective learning practices and knowledge-driven strategy to gain competitive advantages. The GME paradigm indicates how a firm can use collective learning not only to respond to an internal need for change but also to react to external market forces and constraints.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind to investigate the value of the cyclic learning concept from a strategic viewpoint in a multinational organizational context. It enriches the primarily practitioner literature on aligning collective learning into strategy with rich empirical examination of the learning practices of a leading foreign subsidiary. It resolves a gap in the literature regarding how organizational learning and knowledge management processes are aligned to market-oriented competitive strategy. The paper draws a number of critical research issues that call for refinement of the organizational learning cycle theory.
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Martin Spraggon and Virginia Bodolica
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by examining the generation of collective tacit knowledge (CTK) in organizations through social ludic activities…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by examining the generation of collective tacit knowledge (CTK) in organizations through social ludic activities (SLAs) as a specific form of playful micro-practice carried out by employees.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds upon socially distributed cognition (SDC) and transactive memory systems (TMS) to analyze SLAs’ contribution to CTK creation in the workplace. These theories provide conceptual underpinnings for comprehending how workers self-organize shared activities to store, retrieve and use each other’s tacit knowledge within the collective. An example is provided to illustrate SLAs’ manifestation in an agile-based software development firm.
Findings
SLAs may facilitate collective members’ knowing and learning whereby different solutions are sought and potential tactics to cope with work issues are attuned to changing conditions by the collective members at work. Four moderating factors, namely physical proximity, psychological safety, richness of communication pathways and intensity of interactions, are identified and propositions to conceptualize their role in CTK generation through SLAs are formulated.
Practical implications
SLA players’ efforts to solve dysfunctionalities at work are not merely prompted by interdependencies among work-related tasks but also driven by high levels of social embeddedness and interaction among employees. Managers should become more supportive of collective playful activities in their organizations by building a propitious corporate climate for the mobilization of CTK in the workplace. Understanding SLAs as a soft group device where CTK resides, transits, is enacted and continuously metamorphosed represents an important complement to hard devices offered by information systems.
Originality/value
Relying on the notion of SLAs as a means to cope with work concerns, the authors integrate insights from organizational play, knowledge management, SDC and TMS literatures to advance the authors’ understanding of CTK creation through collective playful undertakings at work.
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Kariene Mittendorff, Femke Geijsel, Aimee Hoeve, Maarten de Laat and Loek Nieuwenhuis
The purpose of this research is to get a clear view on how can we judge groups in relation to the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP), and the presence of collective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to get a clear view on how can we judge groups in relation to the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP), and the presence of collective learning in these groups.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature on collective learning and CoPs led to the development of a conceptual model, which was tested through case study research against empirical data from three groups in organizations.
Findings
The groups differed concerning group characteristics, but also concerning the collective learning processes and learning outcomes present. The group that can be characterized as a CoP learns a lot, but the (learning) processes in the group are not always in favour of the organizational learning process.
Research limitations/implications
The conceptual framework was helpful to evaluate the characteristics of CoPs in relation to collective learning. These findings suggest that it will be interesting to expand the model, for example with consideration to the way CoPs experience the need to change.
Practical implications
The developed framework might help managers to judge if groups in an organization have characteristics of a CoP, if they are in balance and what might be needed to develop towards an ideal CoP with a great learning potential.
Originality/value
A first attempt is made to build a framework for judging CoPs for several aspects of their functioning. The research also shows that CoPs are not always stimulating forces for organizational learning.
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David Rae and Per Blenker
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.
Findings
The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.
Practical implications
The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.
Social implications
The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.
Originality/value
The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.
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Min-Yueh Chuang, Chih-Jou Chen and Ming-ji James Lin
– The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of social capital on competitive advantage through collective learning and absorptive capacity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of social capital on competitive advantage through collective learning and absorptive capacity.
Design/methodology/approach
The study carries out analyses based on structural equation modeling to measure the main constructs and test the hypothesized relationships among the variables. The primary statistical technique for assessing survey data collected from 358 Taiwan tenants is partial least squares analysis.
Findings
Collective learning and absorptive capacity fully mediate the relationship between social capital and competitive advantage. Moreover, social capital has a significant influence on both collective learning and absorptive capacity.
Practical implications
Tenant firms in industrial parks must develop effective management tactics for the nurturing of inter-firm relations to enhance collective learning and their absorptive capacity to acquire and exploit key strategic resources such as tacit and explicit knowledge. For specialized firms, close social interactions in specific contexts, mediated by collective learning and absorptive capacity to make up for their resource constraints, can heighten their competitive advantage.
Originality/value
By demonstrating the impact of social capital on competitive advantage in the specific context of industrial parks, whose artificial environment encourages and promotes close social interactions among tenants, this paper overcomes previous and contradictory findings regarding the relationship between social capital and competitive advantage. A key contingent factor is the mediating role of collective learning and absorptive capacity.
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Allison Littlejohn, Colin Milligan and Anoush Margaryan
This study aims to outline an approach to improving the effectiveness of work‐based learning through knowledge creation and enhancing self‐regulated learning. The paper presents a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to outline an approach to improving the effectiveness of work‐based learning through knowledge creation and enhancing self‐regulated learning. The paper presents a case example of a novel approach to learning through knowledge creation in the workplace. This case example is based on empirical data collected through a study of the learning practices of knowledge workers employed within a large, multinational organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The case example presented in this article is based on a study of the learning practices of knowledge workers employed within a large, multinational organization. Participants were members of a number of global, online knowledge sharing networks focused around the core technical and commercial disciplines of the company. Membership of each network ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand professionals at various stages of their career. The survey is available online at: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6017514/survey.pdf The case study reported in this paper is based on 462 survey respondents, including 211 (45.7 per cent) experts, 128 (27.7 per cent) mid‐career professionals and 123 (26.6 per cent) novices, and 29 interviews were conducted with nine novices, and 20 experts.
Findings
The study proposes a mechanism to enhance goal actuation processes for self‐regulated learning in the workplace. The authors term this mechanism “charting” and provide a scenario illustrating how it might work in practice. Drawing upon social cognitive theory of self‐regulated learning, they argue that individualised conceptualisations of self‐regulated learning should be re‐examined. These contradict the interactional and collaborative nature of the workplace where goal actuation is socially mediated, structured by and closely integrated within work tasks.
Research limitations/implications
The case example is based on a previous study. It is not a real‐life example because this paper aims to predict a likely case example to enhance learning performance in the workplace, based on empirical evidence. The study on which this case example is based is limited in scope, examining a small group of workers in one multinational organization. Quantitative studies, as well as studies in related contexts, would complement and validate these findings.
Originality/value
This article extends understanding of the relationship between the individual learner and the collective knowledge and how this relationship can be enhanced through self‐regulated learning in the workplace.
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The critical nature of diffusion in understanding the link between individual competency and collective competency is often underconceptualized. Organizational learning involves…
Abstract
The critical nature of diffusion in understanding the link between individual competency and collective competency is often underconceptualized. Organizational learning involves diffusion of knowledge and/or skill from the individual to members of the collective, and expansion of the collective's capacity to take effective action. Three types of individual and collective competency are identified, ranging on a continuum from explicit‐and‐quickly‐diffused to tacit‐and‐slowly‐diffused Patterns of diffusion can occur in stages: by critical mass, in cycles, or in a synthesis of styles. A model illustrating these dynamics is presented. Criteria for evaluating successful collective learning are introduced.